For years, the word innovation has been used so loosely within news circles that it prompts the question, “Have we really tried to be as innovative as we could be?” I’m talking about innovation in not just the tech or AI or financial areas, but also innovation in how newsrooms approach topics and storytelling.

I don’t mean storytelling through the latest platform or trend. I mean storytelling through community. I mean empowering the community by being true partners from the beginning.

This year, I’ve seen the power of this innovation through my work with Tayo, a project by the Filipino Young Leaders Program. Tayo started out as a virtual help desk to combat misinformation around COVID-19 in 2020 and is pivoting to be an innovation data hub for the Filipino diaspora.

It’s through this work that I — along with my fellow Tayo co-founders and team members, who hail from the medical, legal, academic, and technology sectors — have been on an interdisciplinary speaking tour this year on our work to combat misinformation and ensure data equity in a world where there is a lack of disaggregated data.

We’ve spoken at some of the biggest industry conferences outside of journalism, including RightsCon, International Communication Association, National Communication Association, National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, People’s Public Health Conference, and American Public Health Association.

While there have been working journalists attending or speaking at some of these conferences, there are not nearly enough mainstream U.S.-based journalists conversing in these spaces.

It’s only confirmed to me how much more we, as U.S. journalists working in both local and national outlets, have much to learn from our colleagues from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas when it comes to reaching underserved communities and those working in adjacent and completely different industries all together.

This hypothesis proved true as I began my year-long CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism Executive Program in News Leadership and Innovation this past fall. I was pleased to see so many of my cohort peers from international news organizations, from the U.K. to Romania to South Africa to Finland to Germany,

Just being in the same space and conversations as them has proven to be an intellectual meeting of the minds when tackling the same issues that cut across journalism regardless of where you are located. From business models that have thrived and died to combating misinformation, this was just a small taste of what type of different and innovative thinking and approaches are out there.

But I challenge us to go further. This is where we as an industry could do more to step outside our comfort zones to level up our collective impact to our journalism work and break down silos.

Journalism is lifelong learning outside of “journalism”

What has been the most fruitful and impactful has been in spaces totally outside my daily journalism work. Some recent examples include attending the RightsCon and International Communication Association conferences. While both included some journalists in attendance, U.S.-based local and national media were in the minority.

At RightsCon, the majority of journalists who I encountered were from outside the U.S. At ICA, there were many sessions and presentations on the journalism itself, but I found the most interesting sessions were outside it and in areas that actually impacted communities we covered — such as community interventions around combating misinformation and the data to back it up.

From those two conferences alone, I’ve taken away ideas and thought starters in approaching how to reach the audiences that we in mainstream media have been trying to reach all along. From the culturally tailored language you use to talk to communities to capturing their stories through oral histories, our global colleagues have so much they can knowledge share with us here in America.

I challenge you to step out of your newsrooms, attend that academic conference, that legal convention, or that public health convening where you don’t know anyone — not just in a hunt for stories or sources but to enrich yourself in a different way of thinking about a topic or issue. More often than not, many of these conferences offer entry if you are outside the industry for free or at a heavy discount, especially if you’ve been invited to speak or present.

You will be pleasantly surprised at the result and attending will, in turn, make you a better journalist. And I guarantee you will be seen as the most interesting person in the room too.

And sometimes it’s good to be reminded of the exercise of just being there to learn and absorb. As journalists we are — and should always be — learning and seeking to acquire new knowledge.

Combine this with truly engaging with the communities you cover and you’re on your way to cultivating the holistic and intentional space that all our audiences deserve and want to be of and participate in.